In his latest musings for The Spectator, Rory Sutherland, one of the most influential men in marketing, discusses how the most interesting innovations seem to emerge from the mating of different ideas, a process which is excellently described by Matt Ridley in his TEDtalk called ‘When ideas have sex’.

By using examples such as the wheeled suitcase, which apparently came into being from technology developed for in-line roller-skates, Rory argues that “what really changes the world is when different ideas, often from different fields, breed to create something new.” He goes onto say that the recombinatory process can be used to explain why capitalism works well, and how this process can also be seen in nature…